cover image METRO STOP DOSTOEVSKY: Travels in Russian Time

METRO STOP DOSTOEVSKY: Travels in Russian Time

Ingrid Bengis, . . FSG/North Point, $24 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-86547-672-1

"What has socialism... killed in the Soviets, and what has it created?" wonders Bengis (Combat in the Erogenous Zone, 1972) at the opening of this episodic memoir about her life in Russia in the 1990s. Bengis, the American-born daughter of Russian émigrés, searches for an answer during a series of trips she takes to St. Petersburg between 1991 and 1996. During her visits, which often last many months, Bengis shares an apartment with her Russian friend B, a seamstress recently separated from her husband. Bengis observes the shifting mood as the Soviet Union collapses and B's crowd encounters new freedoms and insecurities. A group of Bengis's Russian friends, well educated and in their late 30s and early 40s, find themselves working as unofficial taxi drivers and illegal smugglers, or not working at all. By the mid-1990s everyone has a half-baked money-making scheme, including B, who cajoles Bengis into bankrolling an operation to sell handmade silk and cashmere shawls in the West. B is a memorable figure—proud, elegant, alternately protective and cruel—and alongside the story of Russia's transformation, Bengis traces the deterioration of her relationship with B, who ends up effectively stealing thousands of dollars from her. This relationship is both the most fascinating and the most frustrating part of the memoir. Bengis doesn't fully examine her and B's friendship. She seems to take for granted B's sudden, intense currents of hostility, which come as a surprise to the reader, and her calm acceptance of B's attacks can be baffling. Still, Bengis is a fine portraitist who creates wonderfully vivid and intimate scenes pulsing with the suppressed frustration, passion and fragile hope of the people whose lives she chronicles. Agent, Jack Scovil. (May)